| Cannabis Defense Coalition |
Responding to increasing outrage over a police raid on a legal, two-plant medical cannabis garden, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn on Monday announced an executive review of the city’s cannabis enforcement policies.
“It’s not the policy, or the goal, of the city to investigate, arrest and prosecute individuals who possess small amounts of marijuana,” said McGinn. The mayor organized a review panel consisting of the city attorney, police chief, county prosecutor, and a member of the city council.
Starting on Tuesday, November 2, a specific assistant police chief must approve all marijuana search warrants in the city.
Washington is one of 14 states that allow the medical use of cannabis, and Seattle voters directed police to lay off the pot enforcement with the passage of I-75, a “lowest priority” directive, in 2003.
With a county prosecutor sympathetic to medical marijuana and a city attorney that refuses to pursue pot cases at all, Seattle is seen as a safe haven for medical marijuana patients in Washington.
| Photo: Seattle Liberal Examiner |
| Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn: “It is not the policy, or the goal, of the city to investigate, arrest and prosecute individuals who possess small amounts of marijuana” |
Last week, city council member Nick Licata apologized to 50-year-old medical marijuana patient Will Laudanski for a botched raid by machine-gun wielding officers who pushed him facedown on the floor as they ransacked his apartment.
Licata pledged to “work to make sure this doesn’t happen again” and called the mayor’s executive review panel “part of the discussion that needs to happen.” The apology came at a packed forum regarding changes to the state’s medical marijuana law.
The Cannabis Defense Coalition, an activist patient advocacy group that tracks medical marijuana cases statewide, pledged to repair Laudanski’s front door, which was severely damaged by a police battering ram during the October 25 raid.
Police left the door in disrepair and the disabled Gulf War veteran lacked the resources to replace it.
“Wasting our limited tax dollars on these worthless pot raids is bad public policy,” said CDC spokesman Ben Livingston. “Failing to repair Will’s door is just plain bad manners.”